Bishop's Jackpot
by beta thief
Summary: This story follows the lives of a Fiend group from the Mojave Wasteland who may or may not be in possession of something important to The Courier, who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. Multiple POV for several characters.
1. 1 - Angel Face

ANGEL FACE

* * *

All Angel Face had at the camp was a radio that broadcasted nightly news that she religiously listened to every single day.

In their camp they had made in the far east of the Mojave Wasteland, the group of raiders she belonged to resided in a settlement they had affectionately named "Bishop's Meadow" after their leader Bishop; a hardened, but well-educated Raider who had seemingly turned from a former life of peace to a life of danger and carnage for unknown reasons. The rest of her group, which consisted of other orphans and strays like herself had worshiped Bishop since he had found them, and had vowed to follow him to the end of the wastes and beyond.

Angel Face, affectionately named for her golden hair and cherub like looks by Bishop, had been adopted by Bishop and his gang when she was a young girl. Orphaned at the age of 7, she resided with a trader caravan that picked her up in the wastes. A man, his wife and their Brahmin had taken her as far as Searchlight when Bishop and his "family" found her. She couldn't remember what happened to the traders, or what her name had been before "Angel Face", but she preferred Bishop's name for her.

"Hey, will you stop listening to that Brahmin shit broadcast? That stupid "Mr. New Vegas" guy gives me the serious creeps."

Angel rolled over on her mattress with a sigh and turned the volume knob of the radio down. Star, a fellow family member was standing over her, arms folded in their usual fashion. "Sorry, didn't realise it was so late."

The older woman scoffed, unfolding her arms to settle them on her broad hips. "Don't matter about the time, I ain't sleeping anyway. Just don't wanna hear that old coot go on an' on about this shit all night," she tucked a strand of her short pink hair behind her ear. "Besides, you should be asleep. I hate to say it but you have to be useful tomorrow."

Angel half smiled in the growing darkness. Star was a hard-ass, she knew, but it was allowed considering her difficult past. Back before Bishop ever found her, Star was a very young escort, to put it lightly, for a band of rag-tag Vipers who used her and treated her like shit. One day, she took a big knife to the throat of the leader and escaped by the skin of her pearly white teeth. Bishop just happened by the establishment and picked her up, on the promise that she would never have to do anything like that against her will ever again. After she realised her past experiences would haunt her dreams, she opted to stay awake most nights, earning her the name Star.

She had been there a few years before they came across Angel, but even then Star had been young. From what she could tell, Star never liked her. Maybe it was because Bishop took an instant liking to her, or maybe it was because Star wasn't going to be the pretty girl of the group anymore.

"Yeah, I know," Angel sighed a little, "Papa Khan loves for me to tag along to these things."

Star shrugged. "Of course he does. Papa Khan is just a dirty old man that loves to look at shapely women," she looked Angel up and down, "that's really all you're useful for anyway."

Angel knew that wasn't the reason for his request. Papa Khan, the leader of the Great Khans, was an important figure to her family, and really all the Fiends that inhabited the wasteland. Though most factions did not get along together, The Khans and Bishop's Fiends had an arrangement of exchanging chems for guns that had been going on for years. The family, who were excellent scavengers (and mostly drug users) traded what they didn't need for substances that fueled. She, unlike some of her family, had no reliance on drugs, and preferred to stay clear of them. However, she was always brought along with their so called "drug patrol", because Papa Khan had met her as a child, had admired her survivalist attitude and had requested to see her every time the patrol went out for their big supply every 6 months. She had been doing the same thing for over ten years now, and Papa was impressed at what a magnificent fighter she had become.

"Bishop doesn't think so," Angel shrugged. "Anyway, is Bobby back yet?"

Bobby, another fiend family member, was Star's lover. He was also Juliet's lover. He was a very strong, handsome, alcohol fueled man who often went out on solo patrols to procure alcohol and trade with local "moonshiners". As far as Angel knew, he hadn't returned. She could tell Star was worried, though she put on a hard exterior and tried not to show it.

"He ain't back yet, and it certainly ain't none of your concern little girl." Star spat bitterly. "Now just shut that shit off and get some sleep, or Bishop will be pissed in the mornin."

Angel threw her a sarcastic salute and Starlight tsked in her direction, turned for the doorless entryway of the so-called sleeping shack, and left. After she was gone, Angel turned up the volume on the radio so it was a little louder than audible.

"Welcome back to the program. This is Mr. New Vegas, and I hope I'm not comin' on too strong. Whoops, better put on my newsman fedora, here. Goodsprings has fended off a mob of escaped convicts after organizing an impromptu militia, according to an old man armed to the teeth with dynamite," Angel Face giggled to herself quietly, suddenly imagining a man with teeth made of dynamite, though she knew what Mr. New Vegas meant. The elderly commentator signed off his news casting with Frank Sinatra's "Blue Moon", so Angel Face turned the volume down once again.

To her right, in one of the other mattresses was Juliet. She was younger than Angel Face at this point, but had been a slave with her brother Romeo for Ceaser's Legion. (Or Kaisar? She wasn't sure how it was actually pronounced) At least, they claimed to be brother and sister. They had been bought by Bishop just a few years ago at Cottonwood Cove and had been inseparable up until a few months. Angel had asked Juliet about their names, to which Juliet explained that her and her brother's names came from a very ancient pre-war book about two teenagers who had a very deep love for each other, much like Juliet had for Romeo. She explained that one of the guards liked to read the younger slaves stories to keep them educated.

As Angel watched Juliet sleep, Romeo poked his head around the doorway. He looked weary, and also very sad. "She been out long?"

"Yeah," Angel replied, "Said she wasn't feeling well and went to bed early." She hooked her thumb over to empty bottles of drinking water that Juliet had been guzzling after she vomited. Angel recalled rubbing the young girls back, her red hair clinging to her forehead slick with sweat. "She's been out for a couple of hours."

Nervously, Romeo shifted on his feet and rubbed his arm. His lips were dry, and he was chewing the dried skin at the corner of his mouth. "Listen, when she wakes up, tell her to come see me. It's kind of really fuckin' important. Okay?"

Angel nodded and Romeo gave her a half smile of thanks. He disappeared out of the doorway and she settled down again. The last thing Angel thought of before she drifted off to sleep was how little Romeo and Juliet had in common in regards to their looks.


	2. 2 - Juliet

JULIET

* * *

Suddenly, she was in complete darkness.

Juliet knew she was dreaming, yet somehow she couldn't muster the strength to pull herself out of it. As if something heavy was resting on her chest, holding her eyes shut. Panic rose like bile in her throat, yet no scream came out of her mouth.

' _It's the chems_ ,' she thought. ' _The fucking chems! I'm paralysed!'_

Her own voice echoed in her ears throughout the dream, though she never spoke a word. The heavy pressure on her chest did not subside when she began to hyperventilate. She was trapped; trapped in nothingness that surrounded her whole body.

' _Romeo!'_ She pleaded to the nothingness. ' _Romeo, please help me…'_

But Romeo was the one who'd given her the psycho in the first place. He had assured her that everything would be fine and that Twitch wouldn't miss a thing. One hit wasn't enough to make you turn out like him, one hit is enough to give you a great buzz, like the opposite of clarity, and everything is dulled – like being drunk without the alcohol. She was hesitant at first - there must be some reason Angel Face doesn't touch chems. Angel Face was smart, observant. Angel Face was beautiful.

' _But I'm not Angel Face'_ , she thought _. 'I'm not beautiful like her. But at least I have Romeo!'_

And there he was, just as the last letters of his name had left her mouth; tall and handsome, his big chocolate eyes were staring at her lustily. He was wearing her favourite armour, the one with the big tire on the left shoulder that made him look so big and scary. She could see his muscles underneath his dark farmers' tan on his arms, covered with dirt and battle scars defending her over many years. Her belly felt funny looking at him.

Then he morphed right in front of her eyes. Twisting and screaming, he pulled his hands from the back of his head to his face and put them over his eyes. He seemed to shrink three sizes, his back moving up and down, jittering almost. Juliet then realised he was sobbing.

He was a boy again; frail, malnourished. But when he removed his hands from his grubby face, his cheeks were stained with tear trails. He wiped his nose with the back of his hand and finished his sniffling, his eyes puffy from crying.

" _I'll protect you."_ He whispered _. "I swear, I'll protect you for the rest of my life!"_

His voice echoed in her ears and she was suddenly blinded by a bright white light. She shielded her eyes with tiny hands and strained at the sky. She was back at the camp again.

Cottonwood Cove hadn't changed in the few years that she had been there last. The rusted slave cages were still the same; high chain-linked fences that kept everything in and out, except once when a wild Cazador landed in the cage. A guard eventually threw a spear at the overgrown bug, but not before it killed five people with its poisonous stinger. That was the day that she had met Romeo, but he wasn't Romeo back then. They were playing mud pies in the corner of the cage when a woman, her name Juliet could not remember, screamed at the incoming attack. She was the first to go. Romeo had stood in front of Juliet, when she was not Juliet. When the Cazador flew down, its orange wings beating the dust from the ground, he protected her like a human shield.

The vision of this memory faded like a mirage. The mirage that replaced this was one of not so long ago. She saw herself as a younger girl, standing hand in hand with Romeo on the slave trading podium. Her red hair was long, to her waist almost, and clung to her forehead and the back of her neck like a second skin. The day was hot, and all she wanted to do was jump in the cold lake.

"I'm telling you Romeo, they'll split us up. They'll split us up and they'll take you to Vegas. They'll take you to Vegas and make you work and they'll give me to a Legion soldier and he'll have his way with me like the other guards do to the other women and I'll be stuck in slavery forever!" the younger Juliet sobbed, the tears leaving trails down her dirty cheeks. Her delicate skin was burning in the high noon sun.

"You worry too much, Juliet," Romeo said, caressing her face with his other hand. "If I can put a good word in with Acacius, maybe we can be sold as a pair." He encouraged her with a small smile, his darker skinned hand tightened around hers. "He's always liked us!"

She watched as her younger self cried harder. Her stomach flipped remembering her feelings and the thoughts running through her head that day; the dehydration, the sheer panic, the thought of loneliness, what her future held for her. But Romeo did as he said he would, and Acacius sold them as a pair. Bishop didn't have a beard back then, but apart from that he looked the same as he did in the present. He handed over 3000 caps for the pair, and then they were free.

The mirage-like vision changed again, and she suddenly felt strange. Her head felt light, like a cloud, but her body was heavy underneath. She felt herself grow back to her normal size, but Romeo was gone. Cottonwood Cove was gone. But Angel Face was watching her, Star was grimacing at her, and Johnson was scowling at her. The same panic from before was rising in her throat, a sick burning sensation that made her sweat. They began to point at her, jabbing their fingers into her stomach as they got closer. Her belly was swollen, as were her breasts. She was huge! Pregnant, enormous! She was-

Awake.

Jolting upright with such speed, Juliet spread her hands on her taught stomach and immediately felt the panic-sick in her throat. Even in the real world she was sweating. She leapt up off her mattress with great haste and barely made it out of the sleep-shack before she brought up her entire stomach content. She wretched a few more times before finally nothing came up anymore, the bile had burned the back of her throat, as if she had swallowed a handful of glass.

"Rough night, huh?"

Juliet turned her head, hand still on her stomach to see Twitch standing there behind her. His hands were shaking visibly on his shoulders, in some sort of bizarre self-hug. His lips were chapped and he was constantly licking them in hope that it would moisten them up.

"I guess," Juliet said slowly. She always felt nervous around Twitch. "Just a bad stomach ache… Probably one of Bishop's rat surprises"

Twitch was a chem addict, and all of the camp accepted it blindly. He was a violent man, but only if he wasn't hopped up on chems. Anything he could get his hands on, he would shoot, inhale, or smoke. Juliet remembered once she was sent on a patrol with him, along with Johnson. He hadn't taken a bump in a couple of days and when they were met with a gang of straggling Vipers, he was less than forgiving when they surrendered. He took hours of pleasure torturing them for information of no particular value, then took more pleasure in slitting their throats and letting them bleed dry. Juliet had accepted her new life as a fiend, but she had never seen anything like this before. When he had approached her at camp, her eyes were wide and her stomach tight; but he was calm. Twitchy, but calm.

"Yeah, maybe," he laughed shakily, rubbing his arms as if he was cold. "Or maybe it's the drugs you took from me?" he laughed shakily again. Juliet swallowed and stood up straight.

"I didn't steal your drugs, Twitch," she reassured him, putting her hands out.

"You got the sweats, girl," he said, narrowing his eyes. "You got a bad belly too, and the night terrors. Don't think I don't know why you're awake right now." He pointed a shaky accusing finger at her. "You had the night terrors. You stole MY psycho!"

"Twitch, I didn't steal them," She was telling the truth to an extent, she only did the drugs, she didn't steal them. Technically. "I didn-"

Suddenly one of his hands launched at her throat and he thrust her back against the sleep-shack. Her head hit the corrugated iron wall with a loud THWANG! It made her vision fizzle like static, she could smell his rancid breath very close to her face.

"You listen to me, bitch," he whispered menacingly, tightening his hand around her fragile throat. "Bishop may have set up a chems run tomorrow, but that doesn't mean I don't know when my chems have been stolen." He hissed, moving to her ear. "I can smell the psycho off you…"

"Tw…itch," struggling to breathe, she attempted to pull his hand off her neck to no avail. His eyes were two murky green pools of hatred, bloodshot with chem usage, he was filled with rage. "I… did..nt… ste…al your… chems!"

He must have believed her desperate choking voice, because he released his hand and stepped back. Juliet bent over and sucked in large breaths, coughing them out in loud barks. "Well, it certainly isn't Bishop's "rat surprise" that's making you sick. We haven't had that in weeks."

He walked away, kicking up dust as he went. She breathed a quick sigh of relief, before her stomach sank when she remembered the last time she'd had rat surprise. It wasn't the only thing she hadn't had in weeks.


End file.
